Friday, November 13, 2009

Since October 24, when you helped lead thousands of events around the world calling for climate action, we've seen new political momentum behind the climate solutions that science demands. After meeting with dozens of delegates during the last round of UN climate negotations in Barcelona, I can tell you first-hand that your local climate leadership is making a real difference--and helping clear the political space for national leaders to take ever-bolder stances on the climate crisis.

Earlier this week, President Nasheed--the leader of a low-lying nation faced with the very real threat of imminent extinction due to rising seas--delivered a powerful speech at the opening of the "Climate Vulnerable Forum." In his speech, he calls for a survival pact in a plea so eloquent that you need to read it for yourself and sign the survival pact today.

The "Climate Vulnerable Forum" included many of the nations on the very front lines of the climate crisis, nations that are grappling with the impacts of the climate crisis here and now.

The focus of President Nasheed's speech was to bring attention to the dire consequences of ending the Copenhagen Climate Talks this December with a weak or non-binding agreement.

I'll let President Nasheed's words speak for themselves:

We are gathered here because we are the most vulnerable group of nations to climate change.

Some might prefer us to suffer in silence but today we have decided to speak...we will not die quietly.

Members of the G8 rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees Celsius. Yet they have refused to commit to the carbon targets, which would deliver even this modest goal.

At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs. At two degrees we would melt Greenland. At two degrees my country would not survive.

As a president I cannot accept this. As a person I cannot accept this.

I refuse to believe that it is too late, and that we cannot do any about it. Copenhagen is our date with destiny. Let us go there with a better plan.

Nasheed called on all nations to push for carbon neutrality in order to ensure the survival of his country and all the most vulnerable people around the world:

After all, it is not carbon we want, but development. It is not coal we want, but electricity. It is not oil we want, but transport. Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need. Let us make the goal of using them.

Finally, he made the distinction between what might be considered a good deal in Copenhagen, and one that would ensure the end of his people:

At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible. They never make commitments, unless someone else does first.

This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide.

We don't want a global suicide pact. And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere. So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.

These are bold words, bolder than most people understand.

Here's the backstory: President Nasheed and other leaders of some of the world's most vulnerable countries are already being pressured to back down from their commitments to strong action. For example, when African countries stood up at the UN Climate Talks in Barcelona last week and demanded rich countries commit to strong climate targets, European capitol's placed immense pressure on them to back off, so much so that the chair of the African negotiating bloc was forced to leave the negotiations.

Leaders like Nasheed need our support. Your actions on October 24th opened the door for bolder leadership. And the deliveries of photos from Oct 24 events to over 110 countries in Barcelona (and cities all over the world) are helping turn grassroots action into political momentum.

Now, with just a month to go before Copenhagen, we must stand together. All of us, from presidents and politicians to scientists and citizens, must seize this moment and take this movement for survival to the next level.

P.P.S. We're still committed to offline, grassroots organizing, and we're gearing up for some historic events on the weekend of December 12th. Plans are still evolving, but for now clear out that weekend--it's the midway point of the Copenhagen climate conference, and at that critical time we'll need all hands on deck to make this movement soar.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

We should add Senator Byron Dorgan to the list on this tenth anniversary of the passing of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which led in whole or in substantial part to the current financial disaster. Senator Dorgan said then:

"I think we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should not have done this,"

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The D.C. mass murderer who killed 10 people sniper style while terrifying people in the east was a member of what religion?

I read a news report that indicated the Supremes had denied his petition, but it did not indicate his religion:

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block the scheduled execution of the mastermind of a string of deadly shootings in the Washington, D.C. area seven years ago.

John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday night in the southeastern state of Virginia for the murder of a man at a gas station in Manassas, located 51 kilometers southwest of Washington.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Clearly this blog is perceived by some to be radical when it comes to criticism of scientific viewpoints, whether those viewpoints are establishment viewpoints or rebel scientists' viewpoints.

When a theory does not pass the fundamental smell test this blog is likely to point it out if there is enough time to do a post on that subject.

Today I want to show that this blog has fairly mild criticisms compared to some of the criticisms leveled by world renowned scientists.

Before we begin let's remember that medical science, mental science, political science, and physics are all called science.

First offered for your perusal is the world famous Roger Penrose:

Quantum mechanics is an incredible theory that explains all sorts of things that couldn’t be explained before, starting with the stability of atoms. But when you accept the weirdness of quantum mechanics [in the macro world], you have to give up the idea of space-time as we know it from Einstein. The greatest weirdness here is that it [quantum mechanics] doesn’t make sense. If you follow the rules, you come up with something that just isn’t right.

We criticize the flailing space programs of the nations of earth because they use eons old propellants while they cling to bad habits. But this blog's criticism is mild compared to the castigation some writers offer:

Bluntly, we're not going to get there by rocket ship....

The long and the short of what I'm trying to get across is quite simply that, in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic — magic tech that, furthermore, does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics — interstellar travel for human beings is near-as-dammit a non-starter.

(Antipope). Meanwhile the rear view mirror debate about whether or not creationism or evolution best explains where we came from rages on as evolutionary scientists send mixed messages while backing down from relying on biological evolution to solve the cosmic problems humanity faces.

But some highly respected scientists consider the same subjects, offering criticism that would seem to be as severe as this blog ever is:

A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.

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